At −20°C, a data center's cooling system runs on fresh air. And this is the beginning of our series on the Economics of AI Infrastructure.
One of the largest operating costs in a data center is removing the heat that hardware generates.
In most locations, that cost runs at full load, year-round, regardless of what the weather is doing outside. Mechanical cooling systems consume a significant share of total facility energy - energy that is paid for, but produces no compute.
Ekibastuz averages −20°C in winter. The shoulder seasons are long. For the better part of the year, outside air handles a significant share of the cooling load without mechanical intervention. This is called free cooling, and in warm-climate facilities it does not exist.
The difference shows up in PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness), the ratio of total facility power to IT load. According to Uptime Institute, the global average is 1.5. Facilities designed around cold climates